Center Church, by Tim Keller
I always liked to listen to Tim Keller’s sermons, but I had never read a book from him, until late last year. I finished this book in December and even started a series here on Medium about each of the parts in the book. However, I realized I would not be able to continue the series, since it would take too much of my time to summarize the book the way I planned.
Thus, I moving the content to this story, so that you could at least have a glimpse of what he says in the book. By the way, it is a wonderful book, especially recommended to pastors or leaders, but insightful for everyone. In this story, you may assume that most of the content is coming verbatim from my Kindle bookmarks and I just did minimal adjustments later to make it sound more like a continuous text instead of random quotes. So, do not expect to see original content here, instead expect Timothy Keller’s own words (Edit: This is the only post where I did this. I greatly prefer to write more like a summary / review with my own words).
Individuals are now “spiritual consumers” who will go to a church only if (and as long as) its worship and public speaking are immediately riveting and attractive — and a success church means a church full of these consumers. Some have also countered that the only true criterion for ministers is faithfulness (sound in doctrine, godly in character, and faithful in preaching and in pastoring people). However, a more biblical theme for ministerial evaluation than either success or faithfulness is fruitfulness.
The degree of the success of the garden (or the ministry) is determined by factors beyond the control of the gardener. The level of fruitfulness varies due to “soil conditions” (that is, some groups of people have a greater hardness of heart than others) and “weather conditions” (that is, the work of God’s sovereign Spirit) as well. Overemphasis on technique and results can put too much pressure on ministers because it underemphasizes the importance of godly character and the sovereignty of God. When fruitfulness is our criterion for evaluation, we are held accountable but not crushed by the expectation that a certain number of lives will be changed dramatically under our ministry.
Others have concluded that the type of preaching at Redeemer has been the key. They noticed my [Tim Keller’s] style of quoting liberally from literary and secular media sources and conclude that this is the way to reach large numbers of urban people. But it is possible to adopt this style to little effect. Preaching is compelling to young secular adults not if preachers use video clips from their favorite movies and dress informally and sound sophisticated, but if the preachers understand their hearts and culture so well that listeners feel the force of the sermon’s reasoning, even if in the end they don’t agree with it. This is not a matter of style or program.
We had thought long and hard about the character and implications of the gospel and then long and hard about the culture of New York City, about the sensibilities of both Christians and non-Christians in our midst, and about the emotional and intellectual landscape of the center city. It was the character of that analysis and decision-making process rather than its specific products that was critical to the fruitfulness of our ministry in a global city center.
Many ministers take up programs and practices of ministry that fit well with neither their doctrinal beliefs nor their cultural context. They adopt popular methods that are essentially “glued on” from the outside — alien to the church’s theology or setting (sometimes both!). And when this happens, we find a lack of fruitfulness. These ministers don’t change people’s lives within the church and don’t reach people in their city. Why not? Because the programs do not grow naturally out of reflection on both the gospel and the distinctness of their surrounding culture.
We reflect deeply on our theology and our culture to understand how both of them can shape our ministry. This leads to better choices of existing ministry forms, or to the development of promising new ones.
A theological vision is a vision for what you are going to do with your doctrine in a particular time and place. We must discern where and how the culture can be challenged and affirmed. Those who are empowered by the theological vision do not simply stand against the mainstream impulses of the culture but take the initiative both to understand and speak to that culture from the framework of the Scriptures.
When we see other people who say they believe our doctrine but are doing ministry in a way we greatly dislike, we tend to suspect they have fallen away from their doctrinal commitments. They may have, of course; yet it’s equally likely that they haven’t strayed but are working from a different theological vision.
The quality of the theological vision often determines the vitality of the ministry, particularly in urban settings. It is critical, therefore, in every new generation and setting to find ways to communicate the gospel clearly and strikingly, distinguishing it from its opposites and counterfeits. All churches must understand, love, and identify with their local community and social setting, and yet at the same time be able and willing to critique and challenge it.
One of the simplest ways to convey the approach to the rest of this volume — and the principles of theological vision under each of these headings — is to think of three axes.
- The Gospel axis. At one end of the axis is legalism, the teaching that asserts or the spirit that implies we can save ourselves by how we live. At the other end is antinomianism or, in popular parlance, relativism — the view that it doesn’t matter how we live; that God, if he exists, loves everyone the same.
- The City axis. To reach people we must appreciate and adapt to their culture, but we must also challenge and confront it. If we overadapt to a culture, we have accepted the culture’s idols. If, however, we underadapt to a culture, we may have turned our own culture into an idol, an absolute.
- The Movement axis. Some churches tend to cling strongly to forms of ministry from the past and are highly structured and institutional. Other churches are strongly anti-institutional: they have almost no identification with a particular heritage or denomination, nor do they have much of a relationship to a Christian past.
So, what do you think? If you are interested in the book, go ahead, it is worth your time. Please, comment what you think about these passages above or about the whole book. Or even suggest other books about the same theme you found interesting too.
See you later!
